Discovering and using Patterns in Content audits
Introduction
Picture this: you and your team have spent countless hours scrutinizing your website's content, meticulously assessing it against carefully crafted criteria, and making notes that capture your evaluations. It's been a journey of discovery, a process that has revealed the strengths and weaknesses of your digital presence. But the journey doesn't end here; in fact, it's just the beginning. Now, armed with valuable insights, you're about to embark on a new phase of content enhancement by unearthing hidden patterns within your audit results.
The Power of Patterns
The essence of a successful content audit lies not just in the singular fixes for individual pages but in the panoramic view that reveals patterns. Imagine having a treasure map that points you to clusters of issues, areas where content inconsistencies, outdated information, or structural shortcomings are prevalent. These patterns are the keys to unlocking impactful and sustainable improvements in both the short and long term.
What to Look For
During a content audit, various patterns of problems can emerge, shedding light on areas that need improvement. Here are some examples of the types of patterns that you might discover:
Under-served audiences: Through the audit, you might notice that content targeting a particular audience segment is outdated or insufficient. This pattern could indicate a need for more targeted and relevant content creation to engage that audience effectively.
Inconsistent branding: Your audit might reveal inconsistencies in branding, such as varying tone, style, or messaging across different pages. Addressing this pattern is crucial for maintaining a coherent brand identity and enhancing user trust.
Editorial issues by content type: If a specific content type consistently exhibits editorial issues, such as grammatical errors or poor formatting, it suggests a need for enhanced quality control processes or additional training for the creators of that content type.
Content gaps in customer journey: Patterns might emerge, indicating gaps in content coverage along the customer journey. This discovery could prompt the development of content to bridge those gaps and guide users through their interactions with your brand.
Outdated information: If a substantial portion of your content appears outdated or no longer accurate, it points to the importance of regular content updates and maintenance.
Content duplication: Identifying duplicated content across different pages or sections of your website highlights the need for content consolidation and improved content organization.
Technical issues: Patterns of issue such as broken links, images not loading, or page errors indicate the necessity of technical fixes to enhance user experience.
Poor performance: Incorporating performance metrics into your audit and looking for patterns related to specific content types or audiences gives you a quick way to identify problems. This pattern might require optimization efforts, such as SEO enhancements or content restructuring.
Ineffective calls to action (CTAs): If your audit unveils weak or inconsistent CTAs across various pages, you might need to revise and optimize these prompts to improve user engagement and conversions.
Lack of visual content: A pattern of pages lacking images or visual elements could suggest a need to incorporate more visual content to enhance user engagement and make the content more appealing.
Mobile responsiveness issues: Consistent problems with mobile responsiveness in your audit could signal the need for a responsive design overhaul to ensure seamless experiences across all devices.
Inadequate content length or depth: Patterns showing that certain types of content are consistently too short or lack depth may indicate a need to invest in more comprehensive, informative pieces that better address user needs.
Inaccessible content: If accessibility issues, such as poor contrast, missing alt text, or inadequate header structure, consistently arise in your audit, it's a clear sign to prioritize accessibility improvements.
Inconsistent keyword usage: Discovering inconsistencies in keyword usage across content may indicate an opportunity to align your content strategy with relevant keywords for better search engine visibility.
Non-optimized metadata: Patterns of missing or poorly optimized meta titles and descriptions may highlight the need for SEO optimization to enhance click-through rates and search engine rankings.
These are just a few examples of patterns that could emerge during a content audit. Each pattern represents an opportunity for improvement, guiding your efforts to create a more cohesive, engaging, and user-friendly digital presence.
Sorting, Filtering, and Matrixing
Sorting and filtering your audit worksheet might sound mundane, but it provides a powerful tool for unveiling patterns. Sort, filter, and use conditional formatting rules to create a matrix that juxtaposes your audit criteria to reveal patterns. When you find a cluster of pages that have a similar issue, you may not only be able to speed up your audit notation process by making criteria selections or notes in bulk, but you’ll also be finding chunks of content that can potentially be dealt with as a group rather than individual pages. Note that this doesn’t mean that each page might not have it’s own particular issues, so be careful that you don’t neglect assessing all the criteria, not just the ones that share a value.
Beyond the Weeds: The Broader Picture
While it's easy to dive headfirst into fixing individual pieces of content, pause and reflect on the broader implications. The patterns you uncover aren't just random anomalies; they are threads woven into the fabric of your content strategy, customer research, workflows, and even your editorial standards. By grasping these overarching themes, you're setting the stage for comprehensive and long-lasting improvements that go beyond mere surface-level fixes. As important as it is to use your audit to find specific issues to address in the actual published content, it’s also valuable to find the gaps in your documentation, training, authoring, and publishing processes that led to the issues to begin with. Addressing these systematic issues helps avoid recurrence of the content issues over time.
Turning Patterns into Actionable Insights
Once you've extracted these thematic findings, it's time to translate them into tangible actions. Take a closer look at the recommendations that emerged from your audit. While straightforward fixes are relatively easy to address, content requiring significant revisions demands a more in-depth approach. Delve into the specifics of each recommendation, assessing the effort required, assigning responsibilities, and prioritizing tasks based on business goals and user needs. These patterns indicate areas of focus for your post-audit content improvements as well as your ongoing governance.
Estimating Effort and Time
An essential aspect of the revision process is estimating the time required for each fix. Balancing the severity of the issue and the type of fix, you can gauge whether you're looking at a matter of minutes, days, or even weeks of work. Such estimations provide a realistic overview of the resources needed, enabling you to allocate tasks efficiently and avoid burnout. Here again is where finding patterns of issues can be a good thing—you can translate those patterns of issues into patterns of improvement. If there are bulk updates that can be made, that can cut down on the time needed to make changes. This can also help with resource planning if you're able to assign different types of issues to different team members to address.
The Pilot Phase: Validating Your Approach
Before embarking on the full-scale audit, consider conducting a small-scale pilot. In addition to providing an opportunity to fine-tune your process and evaluate team dynamics, a pilot may uncover potential patterns that necessitate adjustments to your criteria or scope. The pilot is a trial-and-error phase that sets the stage for a more efficient and effective content audit. For more on doing pilot projects, see Chapter 11, “Conduct a Pilot,” in the book.
Closing the Loop: Implementing Governance
With patterns discerned and insights gleaned, it's time to implement a robust governance framework. This ensures that the lessons learned from your content audit are woven into the fabric of your content creation process. Address the patterns of issues you discovered in your standards and content creation processes by updating style guides, glossaries, training materials, and governance policies. Incorporating these learnings into your processes fosters a culture of continuous enhancement, preventing the recurrence of issues and steering your content strategy toward long-term success.
Conclusion
As you embark on your content audit journey, remember that the true value of a content audit lies not just in fixing isolated issues but in uncovering patterns that shape the foundation of your content strategy. By identifying and addressing these patterns, you're laying the groundwork for a digital presence that resonates with your audience, aligns with your business goals, and stands the test of time.